The Late Duke of Windsor was quite proud of the fact that he could play
the Highland Pipes. Although since Victoria and Albert fell in love
with the Highlands and bought Balmoral, there had always been a piper
who woke them up every morning, in their day it was definitely an NCO
job. When the Prince of Wales learnt, it was unusual for a prince to do
so. Most of the rest of the family were rather rude about his skills,
or why he should want to acquire them.
Since he spent quite a lot of his time swanning around the
Mediterranean on yachts with fast ladies, it's possible it's not a
corruption of Gaelic and is called after the island.
Dru
On 29 Apr 2012, at 15:27, Philip Gruar wrote:
It says "The Late Duke of Windsor" and I always assumed this was the
former Edward VIII who succeeded to the throne in 1936, abdicated so
he could marry Wallace Simpson, and died in 1972 after spending the
rest of his life in France. According to Wikipedia, the title Duke of
Windsor was created for him, so it can't have been an earlier Duke -
as I briefly thought it might have been when considering the phrase
"Late" D of W.
Perhaps he wrote it while Prince of Wales - but I believe he always
hated Balmoral, so probably wasn't much of an appreciator of Highland
pipes, and it's plainly a Highland pipe tune.
It's very much like another Highland pipe tune, with a Gaelic name I
can't remember just now, but the Gaelic does sound close enough to
"Mallorca" for this to be an English corruption of it.
Does anybody know any more, which might support my theory that HRH
Prince Edward may have just renamed an existing tune, maybe with a bit
of alteration, when he didn't quite hear the Gaelic correctly?
Philip
----- Original Message ----- From: "Kevin" <tilb...@yahoo.com>
To: <nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2012 9:52 PM
Subject: [NSP] Mallorca melody
Hi to All,
Can anyone tell me the origins of the the tune Mallorca (1st NSP
Tune
Book), how old it is, and why it was written, and which member of
the
Royal Family wrote it?
Best wishes,
Kevin
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